A consumption meter may be used for measuring utility usage in connection with charging of a consumed quantity of the utility, e.g. water, heating, cooling or electricity.
Wireless reading of consumption meters placed at the premises of a consumer offers a number of advantages: The need for on-site reading is eliminated, which otherwise may involve labour intensive and time consuming, and in turn costly processes. Further, wireless reading offers advantages in terms of the option of more frequent and close monitoring and control of utility consumption, as well as the elimination of human errors related to manual reading procedures.
With wireless reading power management in terms of management of the power consumption of the transmission system of the meter is essential, in particular with consumption meters with no external power supply, such as water, heating and cooling meters. Such meters are traditionally battery powered, and their lifetime is likely defined by the lifetime of the battery. Accordingly it is essential to keep their power consumption at a minimum.
On the other hand, transmission of data from the meter should preferably be made frequently and at high power to obtain a high signal/noise-ratio with the transmission. In particular with consumption meters mounted below-ground, e.g. in a pit, high demands are put on the transmission system performance and its power consumption. With such meters it is essential that the transmission system of the meter has a high efficiency in terms of transmission performance vs. power consumption.
Key elements of the transmission system of a consumption meter are the communication module and the antenna.
Traditionally communication modules are located in the body of the consumption meter, typically in terms of a printed circuit board, with the antenna being arranged on or adjacent to the printed circuit board. U.S. Pat. No. 6,850,197 B2 to M&FC Holding, LCC discloses such arrangement of an antenna on a printed circuit board.
Such arrangement of the antenna, however, is likely to be the subject of both of attenuation of the transmitted signal caused by the meter housing and of interference from other electronic components, and is far from optimal.
Alternatively, as disclosed with U.S. Pat. No. 8,310,403 B2 to General Electric Company, antennas may be arranged at the outside of the consumption meter to eliminate the above disadvantages, however, being instead subject to mechanical impact and insufficient sealing of the meter housing.